Dignity
by Anne Maria
Summary: All in your life may be wrong, destiny can sucker-punch you every other day, but then, when you least expect it, the most unpredictable person throws you a lifeline. How did joining Jacob's pack change Leah?


**A/N:** Thanks to my PTB betas **Twilightrocks122 **and **ajr818**. As usual, your dedication and your thorough work help me improve my stories. Thanks a million **Twilightrocks122 **for your encouraging words.

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_When you were standing in the wake of devastation_  
_When you were waiting on the edge of the unknown_  
_With the cataclysm raining down_  
_Your insides crying, "Save me now"_  
_You were there, impossibly alone._

_Do you feel cold and lost in desperation?_  
_You build up hope, but failure's all you've known._  
_Remember all the sadness and frustration_  
_And let it go._  
_Let it go._

_- Linkin Park, "Iridiscent"_

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Reeking leeches. Stupid half-breeds. Freakin' myths come true. A woman couldn't catch her breath in this wretched town.

I snorted mentally at the term "woman". It most likely implied certain elements that weren't part of me anymore.

That was the truth about me. I was nothing. I wasn't a woman. I refused to be forced to turn into an animal every time I lost my temper. I didn't want to be caged in a place where I was obviously unwelcome. Summary: I was nothing, I had nothing.

Jacob thought Sam hated the bloodsuckers more than any other brother – brother; let alone "sister", though it didn't really apply in my case anyway. But Jacob was wrong. I loathed the parasites more than it was possible for any of them to. In one way or another, they all had their lives. Jacob had his twisted obsession over the parasite spawn. Sam had his fiancée. Jared had Kim. Paul had Rachel. Quil had the baby girl. The little boys had their taste of adventure and risk.

I didn't have any of it. And it was the leeches who'd turned me into this dispossessed whatever I was now. They had turned my once reasonably happy life into a hell by throwing me into the maelstrom of fantasy and science-fiction that arose at their wake.

I could probably blame them for taking Sam away from me, too. But some part of my mind believed it would have happened the same way in the end, second-rate horror movie involved or not.

I wasn't good enough for Sam. Not good enough a woman, not good enough a wolf…

Then, when I'd thought I'd finally attained some peace of mind – at last released from the horror and torture of sharing Sam's mind and being witness to his devotion for my cousin, his pity for me, his shame at himself – Jacob had to go and imprint on that _thing_.

They could all drool and make goo-goo eyes at it, but I wasn't fooled. It was just another aberration of nature. We could set up a house of horrors in Forks any day; there were more than enough monsters.

As a result of the love at first sight gone supernatural thing, Jacob's mind was a worse place to share now. Heck, I wasn't bitchy enough that I'd enjoyed his pain over losing Isabella so many times in so many different ways, but this… this was… revolting. Sickening. Puke-inducing. Downright beyond words.

A small corner of my mind noticed that, all things considered, it was still better than Sam's mind – better than having to experience, every sucking day, _his _gooey feelings for Emily. Far better.

Plus, Jacob was a decent guy. He'd accepted to share his mind with me when all he'd wanted was to be alone with his misery, when he'd had no obligation to let me into his pack in the first place.

More than that, I wasn't the odd one out in this pack. I wasn't the unwanted member everyone put up with because they had no other choice. I didn't have to feel anyone's degrading pity. I wasn't anyone's unwelcome ex. Here, I was just Leah, and that felt good – incredibly so.

It was becoming easier to be a decent person in this company. I was surprised to discover that I was slowly finding my way into being more like my own self. Jake and Seth had given me back something I'd been holding onto by mere inches in Sam's pack – my dignity.

And so, yeah, I'd complain, I'd make faces, I'd feel revolted by his obsession with the vampire's mutant offspring. But somewhere deep inside me, in a place Jacob would never, ever see, I also felt happy for him. I was glad he'd gotten rid of his own pain much more easily than I'd ever be able to get over mine.

I might be a sarcastic shrew, but I didn't lie when I told him he made a chief worth following. He did have a pure heart – now that it wasn't buried beneath mountainous piles of grief.

Which maybe left some hope for me, too. Perhaps somewhere inside me, the kind and caring _woman _I'd once been still existed. Perhaps I still had a chance to live the life that'd been stolen from me by my genetics. I could only keep going and see how things turned out.


End file.
